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Protocol Number:
03-M-0014
- Title:
Neural Circuitry and Risk for Depression in Adolescents: A Study Using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
- Number:
03-M-0014
- Summary:
Anxiety in children of parents with major depressive disorder (MDD) poses a particularly high risk for later-life MDD. In adults, MDD involves dysfunction in prefrontal brain regions that regulate attention to emotional stimuli. These abnormalities: i) have been found primarily in adults with specific familial forms of MDD; ii) persist after recovery from MDD, and iii) relate to anxiety. These findings raise the possibility that risk for MDD is tied to dysfunction in prefrontal regions involved in regulation of emotion, which possibly manifests as early-life anxiety. If this possibility were confirmed in never-depressed adolescents at high risk for MDD, the findings would provide key insights into the developmental neurobiology of MDD. The goal of this protocol is to study the neural substrate of risk for MDD in young people. This protocol tests the hypothesis that adolescents at high risk for MDD by virtue of childhood anxiety and parental history of MDD exhibit dysfunction in prefrontal cortex and amygdala, regions involved in emotion regulation. This goal will be accomplished through fMRI studies of emotion regulation in high and low-risk adolescents.
For this research, at-risk adolescents will be recruited from participants in an NIMH-funded extramural study at New York University (NYU) examining the biology of risk for anxiety and depressive disorders. Over a three-year period, 45 high-risk probands and 60 low-risk comparisons will be studied, including 20 comparisons from the NYU sample and 40 from the Washington DC metropolitan area. In the present protocol, to be conducted at NIH, subjects will undergo volumetric MRI scans to assess structural abnormalities in the prefrontal cortex and medial temporal lobe. They will complete a series of four out-of-scanner cognitive tasks and two fMRI-based cognitive tasks that measure modulation of attention to emotional stimuli. The fMRI tasks are hypothesized to differentially engage the prefrontal cortex and amygdala in low vs. high risk subjects. These tasks will be used to test the hypothesis that at-risk individuals exhibit enhanced amygdala and reduced prefrontal activation on the fMRI emotion/attention tasks.
- Sponsoring Institute:
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National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
- Recruitment Detail
- Type:
Participants currently recruited/enrolled
- Gender:
Male & Female
- Referral Letter Required:
No
- Population Exclusion(s):
None
- Eligibility Criteria:
INCLUSION CRITERIA:
Age 10-17.
Can give consent/assent. Parents will provide consent for all minors.
All subjects will have IQ greater than 80.
High risk: Offspring of adults with a history of MDD.
Low risk: Offspring of adults with no history of MDD.
EXCLUSION CRITERIA:
Any medical condition that increases risk for MRI (e.g. pacemaker, metallic foreign body in eye).
Pregnancy.
All subjects will be free of current impairing affective disorders, separation anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD, ADHD, as well as lifetime history of substance dependence, psychosis, pervasive developmental disorder, major affective disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, conduct disorder, anorexia. All subjects will be born to parents with no history of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
- Special Instructions:
Currently Not Provided
- Keywords:
-
Attention
-
Emotion
-
Amygdala
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Prefrontal Cortex
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Facial Expression
-
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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fMRI
-
Depression
-
Anxiety
-
Adolescence
- Recruitment Keyword(s):
-
Depression
-
Anxiety
-
Adolescence
-
Children
- Condition(s):
-
Involutional Depression
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Anxiety Disorders
- Investigational Drug(s):
- None
- Investigational Device(s):
- None
- Intervention(s):
- None
- Supporting Site:
- National Institute of Mental Health
- Contact(s):
-
Patient Recruitment and Public Liaison Office
Building 61 10 Cloister Court Bethesda, Maryland 20892-4754 Toll Free: 1-800-411-1222 TTY: 301-594-9774 (local),1-866-411-1010 (toll free) Fax: 301-480-9793 Electronic Mail:prpl@mail.cc.nih.gov
- Citation(s):
-
Drevets WC, Ongur D, Price JL. Neuroimaging abnormalities in the subgenual prefrontal cortex: implications for the pathophysiology of familial mood disorders. Mol Psychiatry. 1998 May;3(3):220-6, 190-1. Review.
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Drevets WC. Neuroimaging and neuropathological studies of depression: implications for the cognitive-emotional features of mood disorders. Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2001 Apr;11(2):240-9.Review.
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Drevets WC. Neuroimaging studies of mood disorders. Biol Psychiatry. 2000 Oct 15;48(8):813-29.
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National Institutes of Health Clinical Center
Bethesda, Maryland 20892. Last update: 09/17/2008
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